


between dusk, dawn & linen sheets

by vartamin



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/F, Gen, Love at First Sight, Poetic, Rare Pairings, Romance, i hope this moves you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2018-12-31 21:17:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12141327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vartamin/pseuds/vartamin
Summary: Suki reminded her of daybreak, of morning come after night at long last and clouds parting as if bowing to the rising sun. Yue thought she felt like morning dew and tasted like a beginning.





	1. simple gaze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yue had always thought she was a simple girl with simple needs. She knows better now.

Yue had always thought she was a simple girl with simple needs. Obedient, kind and resourceful, with a heart as big as the moon itself and eyes that held the ocean in its waves.

Throughout all her life she had followed her father’s every wish and command with a light smile and doting eyes, as if she had never wanted anything for herself; had no dream but to lead her people, carry her family’s legacy with the man her father would arrange for her to marry but…

Her eyes slid to the side and traced lazily along their guests, the long lost Avatar seemingly risen from the grave from which he had been hiding, Tribe siblings from the South, rowdy and loud with bickering. She giggled, palm raising daintily to cover her mouth as the sister bent her brother’s soup into his face with a frustrated huff. Her gaze trailed past them to the girl so very different and so very new to her. From the Earth Kingdom, part of the Islands to be precise, she believed.

The strange girl had hair like burning embers, the warmth of a fire in her locks a stark contrast to her own snowy crystal-spun strands; her skin was pale and unblemished, her lips a light shade of pink, slightly burnt from the soup she now sipped at cautiously. But what captured Yue the most about this girl she had never seen before were her eyes, almond shaped and slanted, the gray of this girl’s eyes gave her the impression of a storm on the horizon. She held a confidence in her iron gaze that oozed into her body, the slightly smirking tilt of her mouth, the crook of her elbow resting comfortably on the table. She was golden, and she knew.

This girl felt dangerous to her, not in the way Yue feared for her safety, but in the way that her heart seemed to want to shed the statute regality of her image. She wet her lips.

Yue had never desired anything before, never thought to want something for herself. But something about this stranger from a far away land made her crave breaking, shattering under the pressure and blossoming into something raw and new.

She felt the rumblings of loud, chest bellied laughter by her ear and jumped as an arm was slung unceremoniously around her shoulders from behind. As a princess should, she recovered quickly, shadowing over her surprise as her father pressed closer to her and bellied out another slightly drunken chuckle.

The girl’s gaze quickly shot over at the ruckus, as if trained to seek out danger. Yue could do nothing but stare into the depths of her irises, entrapped by the wistful trails of dark blue seeping through gray as if pooling deeper. The girl raised a sleek eyebrow at her and the small smirk coating her lips spread until it showed teeth. Beneath the thick, drooping sleeves of her coat Yue’s fingers curled in on themselves, long nails digging crescents into her palms, and she resisted the temptation to cave.

The girl’s eyes turned devilish and teasing, and before she could think her tongue darted out, licking her lips sensually. Yue couldn’t breathe, her heart stuttered in her chest, beating haltingly and bringing her blood to a slow broil.

That night she locked herself in her room and, in a fit of frustration, threw her comb against the wall, breathing heavily as she dug the whale bone brush from the wall and smoothed a slim hand over the cracks it left behind. That night she vowed that just this once she’d allow herself to be selfish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have they ever met in canon? No. Are they in love with each other? Yes. 
> 
> This is rarepair Hell rite here but please love me


	2. iron grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yue imagined how her fingers would look curled in Suki's hair, fire slipping around her knuckles in spools of red; and longed for more.

The guests had decided to stay for awhile to further the avatar and the waterbender’s training. And perhaps to gain their bearings, hoping to find a sense of home they had missed for so long. Yue looked forward to running into her iron girl over the course of their stay. She imagined how her voice sounded, how she’d laugh, what her lips looked like curled into a smile and most of all how Yue’s fingers would look curled in her hair, fire slipping around her knuckles in spools of red.

Yue watched her girl from the corner of her eye for days, but stealth had never been her strong suit (something they had never thought to teach her and she had never thought she would have wished to have been taught), only grace.

Grace in her fingers, lightly twined together under the heavy arms of her coat. Grace in her steps, dainty and softly buried under snow. Grace in her shoulders, set high enough to swim with stars and yet without a single pretence of superiority. Grace in her smile, turned upwards at the edges just far enough for a flash of teeth to peak out from beneath her lips.

But none of this would help, should help, could’ve helped hide the burning inside her chest she had once read was called desire from creeping into her body and melting until everything Yue had ever learned, from posture to pronunciation, was a bright red. A red of longing and lust stained her very teeth when she smiled. No longer poised and elegant but seductive in a way only one who has been seduced can exude.

Her iron girl trained daily in advanced martial arts and it drove Yue wild. She was strong, stronger than any Northern girl was allowed to be, and she was faster than the arctic winds (and, Yue suspected, deadlier too). With hands flexed, sure footing and a confidence that could have only come from years of training, she executed many a jaw dropping sequence of skill. Sometimes she did not train alone. Sokka, the loud Southern sibling who held more compassion in his eyes than any she’d ever seen, or even Katara, the girl who had clawed her way into waterbending classes with Master Pakku, often joined her. Sokka, a nonbender she supposed, would fight her with a boomerang and occasionally a spear and would ultimately lose quickly. Not for a lack of trying. Katara though seemed harder to bring to defeat as her training went on, their spars were long and arduous affairs and jealousy pitted low in Yue’s stomach at the thought that they were perhaps closer than she’d like. The thought that her iron girl could belong to anyone but her.

She turned and left in a hurry, heavy robes shifting in her wake as her feet left delicate prints in the light layer of powder snow. Perhaps, if she hadn’t left so quickly she would have noticed that her iron girl was looking at her too.

One day, Yue learned her iron girl’s name was Suki, overheard. And she thought it fit, with a softness her tongue latched onto before catching on the harsher sounds and clicking at the top of her mouth, it was smooth and sharp. Unyielding. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: should b working on my other fic but does this instead


	3. reconnaissance of the heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka recounts the tale of the fish meat and Yue allows herself to ask about her iron girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the Sokka I've created: making innuendos out of everything  
> me, wiping away tears: so proud my little son

The bemoaned princess felt as if Suki slinked around her like a shadow; brushing fingers as they passed each other in icy hallways (Yue would swear the crafted snow beneath her feet and not her knees buckled when once she turned at the contact and found Suki’s eyes on hers), trading glances like stolen goods and Suki letting her eyes roam the planes of Yue’s face, the curve of her fingers and Yue’s teeth biting into her lip until the skin tore.

She gravitated around Suki, it was as if Yue was the moon and Suki the rain trodden earth beneath; she couldn't help but find her iron girl everywhere she went and her heart protested in her chest, fluttering against her ribcage at each destined meeting. And yet every time she tried to swallow the sound of her beating heart, to cage and smother it beneath her ribs; Yue had never known how to let herself want before and learning so slow was suffocating.

It wasn't until eight nights after the avatar and his gang arrived in the North that Yue inquired subtly about the girl with molten eyes, allowing herself only this one small thing. Sokka, with his mouth as big as the heart he wore on his sleeve, started into many a tall tale of Suki’s adventures and prowess. From the warriors of Kyoshi Island to traveling bandits and sea monsters, Sokka spared no detail, happy to have someone who hinged upon his every word. But he was distracted often, turning from the information she had come to him for to the tall tales of the group’s adventures across the world. As of now, he told of the young boy they had once brought to the Southern Air Temple, called him Aang.

“And that’s the Avatar?” She inquired politely.

“Yeah, with the arrow on his head, y’know? Skinny kid with the holier than thou attitude?” He supplied, somewhat annoyed. He looked at her perhaps a little hopefully with a small pout at his lips, as if begging her to ask.

She covered a sigh with a small smile and wracked her head for what he must want her to say. “Has… the Avatar done something to offend you?” She asked hesitantly.

“YES!” he exclaimed with a throw of his arms. Something like ‘finally someone asks’ muttered beneath his breath. “He won’t let me _beat my meat_!” he yells, drawing eyes from the passersby. She cocked an eyebrow at him and Sokka paused midstep. “... That came out wrong...” he said slowly.

“Did it?” Yue asked innocently, mildly amused. She nodded her head for him to continue.

“Okay, so…” he starts, and Yue can tell this will take longer than she had hoped. “Katara and I were going fishing the other day, alright? And Aang’s a vegetarian but _Katara_ decides to invite him along anyways to be polite… but he _accepts_.” He looks at her incredulously and she raises her eyebrows emphatically, pleased, he continues. “Because he’s all moon eyes for her and doesn’t want to let her down when she offered to let him join, but _we_ know he’s not gonna enjoy it because of the whole ‘meat’ thing, and _we_ know _he_  knows that he’s not gonna have any fun watching us hunt but he insists on coming after all.”

“Mhmm.” Yue sounds, fully entertained by his ramblings at this point.

“So we’re fishing and all, goofing off. But we haven’t caught anything yet. And it’s been hours, like _hoouuuurs_. And Katara and I are like ‘well we don’t know the North that well, maybe we’re just in the wrong spot’ and Aang’s all ‘yeah I guess’ and so we row on over to another spot.” He looks her right in the eye then for extra emphasis, “And the _same thing happens_. So, I’m getting suspicious, right? Something’s not right but we keep at it until Katara notices something strange with her weird water magic-”

“Bending?” She supplied, still in awe of the girl who challenged not just Master Pakku, but the laws of the North to a duel and changed her fate.

“Yeah, that. So Katara notices something is off with the water flow or currents or whatever and _it turns out_ … that Aang had been driving the fish away from the boat since the start. And Katara gets all huffy because, like, we’ve been sitting there for _hours_ just trying to catch some fish and he’s just been sending them away all sneaky like. So they get into this huge argument in the boat where Aang’s all ‘life is sacred you shouldn’t lower yourself to killing another being and _ <the monks said this>_, Whereas Katara is all ‘that’s disrespectful to our cultural and survival practices and if he was going to act like a child then he shouldn’t have come in the first place’ and while they’re squabbling away I, the face of reason, am able to finally catch a fish because Aang’s too distracted to mess with the water. And so I got the fish and I’m about to knock it with my club when Aang screams at me and _refuses_ to let me beat my beautiful fish meat that I, myself, caught!” He paused for a second to catch his breath after the winded explanation, “He took my fish meat!” He said, “He wouldn't let me beat my fish meat and then he took my fish meat from me!”

Yue giggled, hand to her mouth. "But why were you fishing anyways? Certainly we have enough of a selection in the markets for you?" She tilted her head inquisitively.

"Oh..." Sokka scratched at his face and grimaced a bit, almost wincing. "Well, to be quite honest with you, I brought it up to Katara because she seemed stressed. Being out on the water always used to calm her down when were kids, probably something to do with her water magic, but I thought she could use the time to relax." At the mention of his sister his face softened into something warm before soon scrunching up in protective distaste. "Pakku's being really hard on her because she's the only girl. And don't get me wrong, I'm really happy that she has the chance to train with him, but that doesn't mean he should get to be an ass about it."

Yue nodded. "There are..." she started slowly, still puzzling the words in her mind into place, "not many who have the courage to call a powerful man out when he is wrong. There are even less who would fight him on it. Your sister's courage is commendable. And I can only hope that her strength is enough to change some of our more... antiquated traditions."

Sokka straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest when she spoke of his sister. "Can only hope..." He repeated, eyes shining with pride.

“You should be proud." Yue slid her eyes to the side, bit softly on her lip and gathered her courage to slither in her chest. "That Suki, too. She fights like no warrior I've ever seen. I wonder... where a girl like that might spend her time?” She asked and he looked at her a bit strangely before she bat her eyes at him just once, and his mind tripped over itself.

“U-uhhh… library?” He guessed, blush rushing down his neck in lazy spots. “I dunno what it is about those dusty old scrolls, but she's been spending a lot of time there lately, I think.” He looked almost ashamed of how little he knew of his friend’s past times and vowed to ask Suki about it the next time they sat down for a meal. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make Sokka like relatable n funny w/o rly making fun of him and also show some of the group dynamics(???) and all


End file.
